You can’t turn your back on the FTC. While I was busy preparing for the Atlas Summit, the Federal Trade Commission found a new opportunity to make trouble for productive people. The people who’d been building Waze, a mapmaking and navigation service that draws on real-time contributions from its users, had sold it to Google for $1 billion—and the FTC told Google it wanted to examine the matter under antitrust law . This could ultimately lead to a demand that Google unwind the deal, which has already closed.

Jul 5, 2013

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The military coup in Egypt is a blow to Islamist totalitarians and a slap at their facilitator, Barack Obama. After massive demonstrations

Jul 4, 2013

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Edward Hudgins

3 Mins

At our Atlas Summit last week , I had the chance to hang out a bit with John Stossel . Stossel wanted to know: why are liberty-lovers so worked up about the NSA spying revealed by Edward Snowden? As Stossel explains here , there are many worse things that governments do. So far, the NSA spying has probably broken up some terrorist rings. And otherwise, it hasn't harmed any American citizens as far as we know. The administration and members of Congress say the program is kept (secretly) under wraps, with independent judicial and Congressional oversight.

Jul 3, 2013

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Economic power is the ability to buy and sell, the ability to make contracts. It's power exerted in the marketplace, in the context of trade. Political power is the power of government and power obtained through the political process, such as by getting laws passed favoring the your purposes. Both economic power and political power are instances of control over others. Social power generally is the ability to induce other people to do things you want. Each exercises control in a radically distinct way. Political power is rooted in an ability to harm others. By contrast economic power is rooted in the ability to offer others benefits.

Jun 27, 2013

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If I’m revolutionizing your whole industry right out of business, do you have to cooperate? If cooperating means letting me sell your...

Jun 21, 2013

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4 Mins

It's make or break time for the private space industry to show that it isn't essentially the new crony capitalism. In this "State of the...

Jun 19, 2013

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Edward Hudgins

2 Mins

Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) rightly warns about the demise of the GOP if his party does not help pass reasonable immigration reform..

Jun 18, 2013

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Edward Hudgins

3 Mins

Republican Party self-destruction is on display in Virginia as the E.W. Jackson, the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor, is looking...

Jun 12, 2013

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Edward Hudgins

4 Mins

Snowden released secrets about the U.S. government’s domestic spying to the public. He paid a high price for this deed, going from a

Jun 12, 2013

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Alexander R. Cohen

2 Mins

James Comey, who is widely said to have threatened resigning as Acting U.S. Attorney General rather than sign off on the Bush administration

Jun 11, 2013

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6 Mins

A soon-to-be-released study on future activities in space suggests that private Moon bases could be a reality as early as 2020...

Jun 11, 2013

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Edward Hudgins

3 Mins

Even before 9/11, the National Security Agency went to Qwest Communications and asked it to turn over Americans’ phone records without....

Jun 10, 2013

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2 Mins

Political controversies and protests are often dominated by the theme of rights or individual rights. We hear about a "right to health care

Jun 7, 2013

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November 2004 -- Last month, I reported on freedom around the world. Now, two reports have surfaced evaluating economic freedom in the U.S. states. The larger of the two—the U.S. Economic Freedom Index: 2004 Report—is a 183-page monograph from the Pacific Research Institute (PRI). The other—Economic Freedom of North America: 2004 Annual Report—is from the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute (in conjunction with the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis) and also includes evaluations of Canadian provinces.

Jun 7, 2013

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In this presentation filmed in 2010, Edward Hudgins offers a detailed examination of the attempts by the new secularists and atheists to add

Jun 4, 2013

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Edward Hudgins

2 Mins

The Institute for Justice , which is championing the cause of food trucks , is celebrating the demise of some proposed regulations here in D.C. as a “Big win for economic liberty!”

May 30, 2013

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Presenter: David Kelley When: June 3, 2013 | 9pm -10pm Eastern | Register now Friedrich Hayek was one of the greatest advocates of liberty in the 20th century. Ayn Rand was another. Hayek won his fame as an economist , but his thought was based in philosophy. Rand won her fame as a novelist and social commentator, but developed her thought into the systematic philosophy of Objectivism.

May 29, 2013

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“We never shut down,” said Vernon Hershberger. His farm was raided, and he was put on trial for operating without a license. But his buyers’ club “continued to feed our community. That’s the way it continued all along. ”And now that he’s been acquitted of doing business without a license, he’s planning to continue doing what he’s been doing—and to appeal the one charge of which he was convicted, disobeying a “holding order.”

May 29, 2013

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In a speech at the National Defense University on May 23, 2013, President Obama framed his administration’s counterterrorism strategy, paying particular attention to the lethal use of unmanned drone bombers. He addressed both moral and legal interests, as well as concerns over congressional oversight of America’s drone program.

May 24, 2013

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Apple Inc. is under attack by politicians for “avoiding” paying $44 billion in American corporate taxes.

May 24, 2013

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Edward Hudgins